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READING Gerard DeGroot鈥檚 Dark Side of the Moon, one can imagine the months of toil required to piece together secret conversations in the back offices on Capitol Hill and NASA headquarters in the cold-war environment of the ideologically driven 1960s, when the US strove to be the first nation to land a human on the moon. For fans of real-life political intrigue this is essential reading.

Yet it is difficult to escape the feeling that DeGroot labours under a misconception. Followers of Apollo had 鈥� and still have 鈥� no illusions about the political imperative of the programme. Everybody knew why the US was racing the Soviet Union to the moon. So when DeGroot insists, quite accurately, that the Apollo missions were driven by cold-war pragmatism and the need to provide the American public with heroes who, by reaching the moon first, would show the world the virtue of US-style democracy and freedom, he misses a vital point. Whatever the motivation for the US government, NASA or the astronauts themselves, what the men of Apollo achieved stands above the ideology of their taskmasters. They became heroes despite the cold war, not because of it, and were lauded in the Soviet Union as much as they were at home. Nobody was hoodwinked, nobody was gullible 鈥� these people walked on the moon.

鈥淭hey became heroes despite the cold war, not because of it鈥�

DeGroot鈥檚 stories make excellent reading for those who prefer Machiavellian superpower politics to 鈥渢he right stuff鈥�, and he correctly exposes the myths constructed by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that have likely sustained NASA in the post-Apollo years. Still, you can鈥檛 help feeling that DeGroot is being a killjoy. He suggests that the moon turned out to be nothing of importance, quoting astronaut Buzz Aldrin鈥檚 description of a 鈥渕agnificent desolation鈥�, a phrase DeGroot interprets to mean that our nearest neighbour was nothing more than 鈥渁 sterile rock of no purpose to anyone鈥�. But few people use 鈥渕agnificent鈥� in negative terms and, whatever the astronauts discovered, their achievement in reaching another celestial body stands head and shoulders above the moon鈥檚 practical worth.

Meanwhile, Piers Bizony鈥檚 The Man Who Ran the Moon covers another hidden story behind Apollo, the story of James Webb. If the Apollo astronauts were heroes in spite of the cold-war ideology that cast them in that role, Webb is the man who ensured their place in history.

Webb was the South Carolinian lawyer who, in 1961, persuaded JFK to allocate 5 per cent of the US federal budget to putting a man on the moon. When the project seemed scuppered by public reaction to the 1967 Apollo 1 launch-pad fire that incinerated astronauts Ed White, Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee, Webb shouldered the blame, sacrificing his career in the face of media onslaught for the sake of allowing the Apollo programme to continue. But his honesty was his downfall, and his name became increasingly airbrushed from the Apollo story. He struggled on, becoming more fraught and less influential until, faced with fears that the Soviet Union might launch a spacecraft into lunar orbit before NASA, he resigned on 7 October 1968.

Webb figures significantly in DeGroot鈥檚 book as well. Until Apollo 1, Webb was the PR brain behind the jet-propelled brawn. That his role has subsequently been diminished adds credence to DeGroot鈥檚 revisionism, which criticises the myth-makers in NASA and the government. DeGroot deserves plaudits for painstakingly piecing together the stories that won both the propaganda war and the moon race. Still, the truth behind the politics that took Apollo 11 to the Sea of Tranquility does not, as he implies, take anything away from the achievement.